


Attempting to Weld a Broken Heart Back Together

by MonkeyMindScream



Series: Rare Pair Week 2019 [3]
Category: Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!
Genre: F/M, who's up for some light angst??, yeah that's what I thought ya masochistic freaks get in here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-28 00:47:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20417102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonkeyMindScream/pseuds/MonkeyMindScream
Summary: Day 3: DateChiro grows up. Jin May can't. Years after the relationship falls apart, Jin May decides to take a shot on someone else.





	Attempting to Weld a Broken Heart Back Together

The relationship had been over for about six years.

To put it simply, Chiro had grown up. Jin May hadn’t had that luxury.

They’d tried though. They’d tried for _years_. Jin May had gotten external “upgrades” to look older, so she’d seem to be aging alongside Chiro. But that’s all they were. _External _upgrades. Her _mental_ age was locked at what it’d initially been programmed to be: a teenager.

It started with little things at first, like Chiro not laughing as hard at things he used to find hilarious. Things they’d used to do together that he’d previously thought were a blast started to bore him. He started using a certain _tone_ when she was goofing off. Not a mean or belittling one. Not even a mildly reproachful one. It was calm and cautioning, and reflecting on it years later she’d realize she’d heard Antauri use that same tone with Chiro.

It made her feel like she was being _babysat_.

Not only that, but Chiro became much more… _stern _than he used to be. Make no mistake, he was still a giant sweetheart and kind of a goof. He was still _Chiro_. But he wasn’t as carefree as he’d once been, and he took his responsibilities a lot more seriously than he had before. Jin May used to reassure herself (frantically, and to little effect) that Chiro had fought in a _war_. That would make anyone reevaluate their priorities. But, eventually, she had to face reality. The war had left its scars on Chiro, but becoming more mature wasn’t one of them. That was from _growing up_.

Eventually Chiro broke things off. She didn’t remember how he’d done it; she’d personally purged those files from her memory banks. Remembering it felt like getting impaled through the chest, so she’d eliminated her ability to remember it. She suspected she’d cried a lot. She hoped (in the most guilty, non-malicious way possible) that he’d cried too.

He’d been twenty-two when they broke up.

The more she thought about it, the more inevitable it she realized it all had been, regardless of how hard and how long they’d tried to fool themselves there was hope. When she was sad and filled with the inexplicable need to make herself _sadder_, she’d think about how arguably the most meaningful relationship in her life had come with an expiration date right from the start.

She missed him.

…Except that wasn’t wholly accurate. Well, it _was_; she _did _truly miss Chiro. It was a dull, constant ache in her chest. It was just… she missed Chiro when he was _hers_. She missed fourteen-year-old Chiro. She missed the Chiro whose emotions she understood. She missed the Chiro who was her _equal_. She missed the Chiro she’d fallen in love with.

She knew _that_ Chiro and the Chiro of today were the same person. The problem was that he was a human. Humans grew and changed. She was a robot. She… didn’t.

They’d tried to stay “_friends_” afterwards. Chiro had made it clear that even if she wasn’t his girlfriend, he still cared about her and wanted to keep her in his life. They’d stayed in regular contact with each other… at first. They both came to the unfortunate realization that without the boyfriend/girlfriend titles tying them together, they really didn’t have all that much in common anymore. It probably also didn’t help that she wasn’t the slightest bit over him, but she’d never mentioned that out loud, so she didn’t think that should have been _too _big of a factor…

She was actually the one who started pulling away first. Chiro would call, invite her to hang out, to come see the monkeys, but she’d decline and invent reasons why should couldn’t come or make up plans she didn’t actually have. Her reasoning had been that seeing Chiro _hurt_, even if they were “still friends,” and that making herself get over him was just too hard when she saw him frequently.

Nonetheless, it broke her heart when his efforts to reach out eventually slowed to a stop, even if it was by her own doing.

She decided to move away. She justified it to the Team by saying that with Skeleton King gone, they didn’t really need her anymore, and anyway she never _did_ manage to track down answers to past. Now was as good a time as any to pick things back up.

(She justified it to _herself_ by saying she might actually be able to start getting over Chiro if she had some distance. And she wasn’t kidding when she’d said she wanted to investigate her past a little more, so there was that…)

She’d been roaming space for nearly five years. Her search for answers had turned up nothing. Just a long string of leads that turned into dead ends, or leads that hadn’t actually been leads at all. She hated to admit it, but she’d given up hope by about the third year. Lately she felt like she was more or less just killing time. Until what, she didn’t know.

It wasn’t all bad, she supposed. She’d managed a bit of self-discovery over the years. Most egregiously she learned to _hate_ romance movies and books. If there were breakups in those, the two would almost inevitably get back together by the story’s end. Or if they _didn’t _then the girl would get swept off her feet by someone who was a better match for her than the first boy ever was.

She and Chiro wouldn’t be getting back together by their story’s end. And she couldn’t stop thinking _about_ Chiro long enough to get swept off her feet by anyone else.

But she still wished. She wished something would happen to knock Chiro out of her mind. Even if her feet remained firmly on the ground after that, at least she wouldn’t have that pain eating away at her for the rest of her life. Even more hopelessly, she wished things would just go back to how they were.

Failing that, she wished Chiro would at least contact her. She didn’t know why she didn’t contact _him_, or even head back to Shuggazoom. Somehow she felt that would be giving herself away, or something. Letting him know she still had feelings for him. But she really did miss him. Even if it was just for minute, she wished she could hear his voice again.

And then one day he _did_ contact her. And cordially extended an invitation to his _wedding_.

* * *

Jin May’s feet hit the pier lightly as she landed. From a distance, Shuggazoom looked the same as it ever had. Not that she expected it to look radically different up close; it wasn’t like there’d be cause to remap the entire city over the course of a few years.

She’d argued with herself heatedly on whether or not she should come. She hadn’t so much as _thought_ about dating after she and Chiro had broken up, and here he was getting _married. _What could she possibly hope to gain by going to his wedding other than an aching heart?

_Closure, _hopefully. “Getting some space” hadn’t done the trick, so maybe seeing him happy with someone _else_ finally would.

(She heartily doubted it. But the thought that Chiro was apparently so completely over her that he wasn’t bothered by her being at his wedding made her feel uncomfortably obligated to go. She didn’t want him to know she wasn’t over _him_, or worse, completely misread the situation and think she resented him. Anyway, it wasn’t like she had anything else going on _anyway…_)

When she got to the Robot, she found Chiro and the Team outside of it decorating and making various preparations. Chiro spotted her first (her heart skipped a beat; he looked so _grown up_) and ran over to greet her. She accepted it openly.

And then Jin May saw _her_, talking animatedly with Gibson and Sprx.

Something inside Jin May twisted at the sight of her behaving so casually with the rest of the Team. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting; that the monkeys would just _ignore_ Chiro’s new girlfriend? That they wouldn’t have bonded with her? It had been _five years _since she’d last seen them; this girl had clearly been here throughout that time. _Obviously _the monkeys would’ve had time to get close to _her_ by now…

The girl was tall, slightly board-shaped. Her hair was dark brown, shoulder-length and kind of shaggy. Orange-ish colored eyes. Clothing was sort of dark. She looked… _younger_ than Chiro. It was a blow Jin May hadn’t seen coming and didn’t fully understand why it hurt to begin with.

“Hey guys!” Chiro called over. “Look who it is!”

The monkeys looked over at them, and Jin May felt warmer than she had in ages to see them all smile at the sight of her. They all came over, said their greetings, asked the mandatory questions (how have you been, what’s new, etc.) and gave the mandatory answers when she sent their questions back their way. Jin May enjoyed it immensely. It was _so_ good to see them all again.

The girl hung back, she noticed. She stayed by the group and listened to the conversation politely, but she never joined in or introduced herself.

As Jin May and the monkeys finished sharing pleasantries, Chiro stepped forward, taking the girl’s hand.

“Irene, I want you to meet Jin May,” he said. “Jin May, Irene.”

_Irene _looked surprised (she murmured a sidelong “_That’s_ Jin May??” at Chiro, who nodded), then took a step towards Jin May. She held out her hand momentarily, then faltered and shifted it upwards as if indicating “high five!” but at the last second used it to push her hair behind her ear.

“Sorry,” she said, smiling sheepishly as her face went red. “I was going for a handshake but then I thought that might be too _formal,_ but then when I went for a high-five it seemed too casual and out of nowhere and. Um. Yeah. I’m Irene nice to meet you.”

With that she retreated back to Chiro’s side, suddenly very interested in the pigeons across the street.

Jin May smiled in a way she hoped was encouraging. “Don’t worry about it. Nice to meet you too!”

Chiro smiled too, but not at Jin May. He was giving Irene an endeared look and throwing an arm around her. When he turned back to Jin May, he asked, “So where are you staying?”

“Dunno yet,” she said, shrugging cheerfully. “Coming to see you guys was the first thing I did when I got here. I should probably go check into a hotel, huh?”

This time Chiro _did_ smile at her. “Yeah, probably.”

“Did you guys invite a lot of people?”

“Kinda, yeah. Irene’s whole family is coming, plus… well, basically _everybody_ who helped out during the war.”

“Wow. So you’re saying I’d better go snag a room before all the good ones are taken?”

“Yeah, pretty much. You need anyone to show you around?”

She smiled one more time. “I think I got it. I’ll catch up with you guys later!”

The Team said their goodbyes and went back to what they’d been doing around the Robot. As she left, she heard Irene whisper to Chiro, “That’s your _ex?_ Wow, did _you_ sure trade down…”

“Shut up,” Chiro laughed quietly, “I did _not_.”

Chiro said some more things. Jin May quickened her pace so she’d be out of earshot faster.

Jin May was relieved to find that she didn’t hate Irene. She hadn’t become _that_ petty and spiteful yet, so that was something. All the same, meeting her had felt… weird. Both for obvious reasons and because she just didn’t seem like Chiro’s _type_. It then occurred to her – and her heart sank accordingly – that it was because she and Irene were plainly nothing alike, and she’d thought _she_ was Chiro’s type.

Plus… there was some small part of her that couldn’t help but feel _usurped_. Chiro, the monkeys, Shuggazoom overall… The home she’d thought she’d found here wasn’t hers anymore.

She’d hoped that coming would be the final nail in the coffin she needed to start getting over Chiro. She realized that all it was actually doing was making her _sad_.

* * *

Jin May had been one of the first to arrive for the wedding. She’d come in almost a week early, mostly just because she’d wanted to give herself time to adjust to the idea. But she wasn’t the _only_.

Several hours after first landing, talking with the Team, and getting checked into a room, she ran into Slingshot. Where she had wanted time to adjust, he’d apparently just been in the area and had nothing else to kill time with, so he’d just headed over.

He was as surly and sarcastic as he’d ever been, which to Jin May (who also hadn’t changed one singular bit, to the point of contention apparently) was a breath of fresh air.

They’d always gotten on well, regardless of their wildly different personalities, so when Jin May suggested they sit and talk for a while to catch up, he agreed with minimum optic-rolling.

“You look… different,” he said.

Jin May cocked her head to the side. “_Good_ different?” 

Slingshot shrugged. “You look just as organic as ever, I guess, you’re just… taller.”

That was a major oversimplification, but he wasn’t wrong. She used to stand about chest-height with him, now they were eye to eye. Not necessarily her _favorite_ thing about her upgrades, but for someone she hadn’t seen in a while she supposed it was a fair enough thing to point out.

Her face was still round, but not as full as it had been upon first activation. She’d traded out her pigtails for a side-swept ponytail, and the dress and Mary-Janes for a skirt and practical boots.

(She hadn’t worn her Hyperforce dress or scarf in years. She didn’t feel like she had the right anymore.)

“Thanks for noticing, I guess,” she said. “You look exactly the same.”

“No point in messing with what’s already functional.”

There was a pause. Jin May could feel the elephant in the room lumbering over towards them. She braced herself for it.

“Hey…” he started slowly. “What, um, what happened? Last I checked you were the one Monkey Boy was…” he faltered. Slingshot had never fully understood the concept of “dating,” and she suspected he’d just forgotten what the word for it was.

“…courting?” he finally finished, still unsure. Which made Jin May laugh despite the pain in her heart, because that wasn’t a word she ever would have imagined Slingshot using. It just seemed so _old-timey_.

But then her moment of levity passed, and she was left stuck in reality. “Yeah, um…” She rubbed her upper arm, suddenly feeling very displaced and hoping not to let it show. “We broke up,” she finally finished simply.

Slingshot looked like he had more questions, but to her relief he didn’t ask any of them. She didn’t fool herself into thinking it had anything to do with tact, he probably just decided it wasn’t worth the trouble to dig into things.

“How ‘bout you?” she returned. “What’s new with you?” Then, because it suddenly occurred to her, “How the heck did Chiro convince you to put off your search for Maezono to come to a _wedding?_”

Slingshot actually perked. “I found him,” he said, and his optics shone with something she couldn’t quite place, “and I _destroyed him_.”

He went on to spin a dramatic tale that Jin May – almost in spite of herself – utterly ate up. Apparently over the course of the war Maezono had had time to set up another operation on a distant, uninhabited planetoid. When Slingshot finally tracked him down, he’d had more robots under his control than ever, and was on the precipice of unleashing them on an unsuspecting universe. Some of the details of the ensuing fight had left Jin May with her hands clapped over her mouth, because 1. Sentient or not, Slingshots descriptions of the fates of some of the robots he’d fought were downright nightmarish to any bot with even a shred of empathy, and 2. Slingshot had not remained unscathed during the battle. He _was _sentient, and Jin May had plenty of empathy to go around. What was done to him was _more_ than nightmarish.

By the end of it, it was down to Slingshot and Maezono. Maezono had no more robots left to protect him. Slingshot could barely keep himself standing. (_Just like in a movie!_ Jin May had thought, but didn’t say. She didn’t want to interrupt.) Maezono went off on a rant, called Slingshot pathetic and worthless, a complete malfunction. (“Y’know,” Slingshot said, “the typical bad-guy ‘I’ve been beaten and I’m mad about it’ –spiel.” Jin May laughed.) Slingshot’s legs crumpled underneath him at one point, making him crash to the ground. Maezono crowed and sneered and taunted harder. There was sound from somewhere in Maezono’s makeshift-factory. The machines he’d used to construct his robo-army were powering on. He was working to wrestle back the advantage.

Slingshot’s blasters were shot. The several attempts to shoot from where he lay were met with failure and pain as the broken and shattered parts scraped against each other as they tried to fire. He realized had just enough power left for one last rush.

He described the struggle it took to push himself up from the floor as probably the most agonizing, frustrating, and stressful experience of his life. He knew that if Maezono got so much as a single robot activated, it was over. Maezono’s insults became more aggravated and frantic the farther he managed to stand. By the time he managed to lift his arms to power up the ion bands, Maezono was screaming and spitting in rage and fear.

Professor Maezono managed to shriek one last furious condemnation, and then it was all over.

Jin May actually clapped as Slingshot finished his story. Who knew he was such a passionate orator?

“That’s fantastic, Slingshot!” she exclaimed. His chassis puffed out slightly. His pride at the compliment was kind of cute, actually. “You must be so happy to have that all behind you now!”

She was more than a little shocked to see him instantly deflate.

“Yeah,” he said, voice back to the brusque tone she was used to from him. “I’m _thrilled._”

She stared at him, confused for a second. What had she said that was so offensive?

When he didn’t offer any explanation for his sudden shift in mood, she said, carefully, “You’re not exactly selling that stance right now, y’know…”

“Well, I am,” he snapped. “My whole purpose was stopping Maezono, and now I did that. I’m _great_.”

Jin May didn’t say anything.

He looked away after a moment. “…I mean… actually my purpose was to be a container for the maniac… and I really only started fighting him after that came out… and when he killed Dr. Takeuchi… and now I don’t have to do either of those. So I guess I don’t really… _have _a purpose anymore, which is. _Weird_. But, y’know, I’m still… great.”

She hadn’t been expecting to be so deeply affected by what he would say.

“Yeah,” she said with would-be casualness. “I’m great too. I mean, I had my memory wiped so I never really knew _what_ my purpose was supposed to be, and even after years of looking I still haven’t found any answers to _that, _so I probably just _won’t_. I started helping out Chiro and the monkeys and that became my ‘purpose,’ so that was good, but now they don’t _need_ my help. I’m not even back at step one. I’m at step zero. I’m _super_.”

Slingshot looked at her, quiet. She was surprised how someone lacking certain key parts used to create expression could look so dejected. “…right. So you know. Awesome, isn’t it?”

“Yep,” she sighed, not bothering to hide her falling expression. “The best.”

There was a drawn out span of quiet where they just sat with each other. Then, slowly, Slingshot leaned over slightly, nudging her shoulder with his own. Jin May, smile pulling itself across her face, repeated gesture back.

This was… _nice_, actually. This was really nice. Jin May hadn’t felt this _connected _to another person since—

Realization hit, and she was seized by a compulsion so sudden and frantic she didn’t have time to think it over or weigh the pros or cons.

“Come on a date with me,” she blurted.

Slingshot tilted his head, then asked flatly, “That’s that weird courting thing humans do, right?”

Jin May nodded. “Yes and they’re very fun, will you go with me?”

“…are you courting _me?_”

“_Yes, will you go with me?_”

Slingshot startled, blinking. Clearly he wasn’t expecting her to be so candid. He fumbled and stuttered for a second (also surprisingly cute), before finally grumbling “Yeah, fine, sure. Nothing better to do, anyway.”

* * *

Jin May had already gotten an outfit that was suitably fancy for the wedding, which sat waiting in her hotel room. But she felt it might be a little _too _fancy for a first date, so she hastily popped into a department store to find something a little more fitting for the occasion.

She settled on a wine-red dress with matching heels. She’d never really worn much red before. She hoped she wasn’t making a mistake by trying something new tonight.

Her hotel room wasn’t especially thrilling in terms of layout, and didn’t have much of a view. She could see the street below and the buildings surrounding the hotel. It made her miss her old apartment, which had a really beautiful lookout over the ocean. Regardless, she found herself having a surprisingly good time getting ready for the evening. She hadn’t had an excuse to get dressed up or put on make-up for a while. Admittedly, it was something she’d have ended up doing anyway, considering she was going to a wedding soon, but this felt different. She had _butterflies_ in her stomach as she got ready, rather than the heavy sense of dread she’d predicted she feel for that.

It was late summer in Shuggazoom, so despite being well into the evening the sun was only just starting to set when she left her room to meet up with Slingshot. He was already at their agreed meeting spot when she got there. It was obvious he hadn’t really done anything special to his appearance – if he’d done anything at all – but Jin May was neither surprised nor offended by that. She hadn’t expected him to.

He saw her approaching and tilted his head. When she reached him, smiling, he said, “You look different. A-again.”

Her smiled widened. “‘Good’ different?”

He hesitated for a moment, then said, “Yeah. Really good.”

* * *

Slingshot couldn’t consume organic food, and Jin May hadn’t suspected it would make for a very good date for him to just watch her eat, so going dinner together had been out. Instead she’d gone with the old staple of seeing a movie. Slingshot had been indifferent to everything that was playing, so Jin May bought two tickets to the romance being shown in spite of her hatred for such. The hope was that maybe since she was seeing it while she was on an _actual_ date, it would lessen her aversion to the genre a bit. Also she wasn’t interested in seeing the horror film that was playing, and she found most modern comedies to be just long strings of over-the-top raunchy (or just downright disgusting) jokes that were meant more as shock-value than actual humor, so that one was out too. That just left the romance.

Fifteen minutes into the movie and she wished she’d gone with the horror film. It was being set up to be everything Jin May _hated._ The main girl was in love with her male co-worker, but they couldn’t be together because they were both already dating other people. Nothing was _making _her stay with her current boyfriend, same for the co-worker and his girlfriend. They should be _grateful_ they had the ability to move on if they chose; not bemoaning their situation while stubbornly hanging on to it anyway.

She was just about to apologize to Slingshot for her bad call when she noticed he was snickering. When he realized she was looking at him quizzically, he leaned in and whispered, “Are all organics this _dumb_ when it comes to this kind of stuff?”

She felt her mouth twist upwards a bit. “Nah, this is just bad writing.”

He glanced back at the screen. The female lead was having dinner with her (honestly, perfectly nice) boyfriend while staring listlessly off into space, presumably fantasizing about her co-workers abs or something. He looked back at Jin May, and though he didn’t have a mouth she could almost feel him smirking. “So you won’t get offended on their behalf if I laugh at this?”

She realized she was smirking too. “Not even a little bit.”

The film was, indeed, much more enjoyable when viewed as a comedy. A girl a couple rows ahead of them – who was apparently trying to take the movie 100% seriously – kept turning back to glare at them. Jin May felt marginally bad for ruining what she surmised to be _that_ girl’s date with their hushed, sarcastic commentary, but at the same time she was having too much fun to stop.

The girl huffed out of the theater visibly annoyed the second the credits started playing, her date trailing meekly behind her. Jin May tried to feel more guilty about it, but that proved difficult to do whilst giggling.

* * *

After the movie they decided to go to Shuggazoom’s local park. From what Jin May remembered it was usually pretty quiet at this time, and there was a fountain in the center that would light up at night. Slingshot hadn’t seemed particularly impressed, but she thought it was pretty and worth visiting anyway. That sat on a bench in front of it and chatted about the movie, still cracking jokes at its expense, and then slowly they moved on to talk about other topics.

It somehow got a lot deeper than Jin May had anticipated.

“It’s just a little depressing, y’know?” she asked, watching the illuminated water arc into the air before cascading back down, expression glum. “I know I should be happy for what I have, and I shouldn’t put so much stock into the past because, I mean, it’s the _past_ and all, but I still sort of feel like… I dunno, like I’m missing out on something because I don’t know where I came from. I don’t know if there’s any people I left behind who’re missing me. I don’t know if there’s any people _I _should be missing.”

“It might be for the best,” Slingshot said quietly. Jin May turned to him, confused and… not quite _hurt_ or _offended_, but she did feel a spike of something in that direction.

He went on, “I only knew Dr. Takeuchi for two days. The way he talked to me though, it felt… I dunno. Like I’d be _safe?_ There was so much that was _new_ that I didn’t understand, or that I _did_ understand, but didn’t understand _how_ or _why_ I did, but he was… he made it feel like that was okay. I’d figure it all out as I went, and he’d be there to help as I did it. He said—”

Slingshot suddenly stopped talking. His hands were clenched into fists, staring directly ahead. Jin May looked at him, then silently placed her hand on top of his. She realized he was shaking.

After a long, drawn out moment, he spat, “_He said he and Maezono would be there for me when I needed them.”_

Jin May had heard him use a rough tone before, but never one so _broken_.

She didn’t say anything. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him into the tightest hug she could manage.

“Maybe it’s better you don’t remember anything,” he finally said, voice unsteady. “It means you’ll never have to worry about things like _this_.”

She nodded, still holding him. She couldn’t really argue when he phrased it like _that_…

* * *

There was music wafting up from an open apartment window.

Jin May had suggested they take a look around the city, both to give Slingshot a tour and reacquaint herself with it. Since they both had rockets, they’d used them. Sometime later they’d found themselves standing on top of a random apartment building, taking a small break from their exploring and enjoying the stars that had finally surfaced.

And they could hear music.

Jin May was looking up at the sky, swaying absently to the music, when suddenly Slingshot very gently took her hand, and put his arm around her waist.

He did _not_ know how to dance, and he was kind of obvious about it. The movements felt stiff and a little awkward. But he was _trying_, and he was kind of obvious about that too. The longer it went on, the more he seemed to shrink in on himself, embarrassed and plainly feeling very stupid. “Kind of cute” had been how Jin May had been thinking of him previously. Here, he was just being adorable.

She shifted their stances, gently nudged his hands into the proper position, then swung him into a low dip. The shocked laugh that bubbled out of him was almost more wonderful then the music playing.

She pulled him back up and they were off, spinning around in time to the beat. Slingshot’s movements slowly loosened and became more relaxed the longer they danced. He was laughing, and she found she couldn’t help but join in. There where violins accompanying the singer, the music was swelling—

Slingshot suddenly took hold of Jin May’s hips and lifted her upwards, spinning her in a circle, and they kept rising long after she should have reached the precipice of his lift. He’d activated his rockets and had taken them into the air. She burst out laughing again, wrapping both arms around his neck.

They twined and swooped through the air for the next three songs or, laughing all the while.

* * *

They landed just outside Jin May’s hotel. Slingshot had apparently made arrangements to camp out and recharge on his “Prototype’s” shoulder. Jin May took the opportunity to tease him about why he didn’t just say “older brother” (it had been a running argument/joke of theirs during the war) and Slingshot once more shot back that that was an organic concept.

(It should be noted that his rebuttal seemed much more playful than had usually been prior.)

“This was nice,” she said, giving him a smile as they stood outside the entry.

“Yeah,” Slingshot said, sounding both pleasantly surprised and a little bashful, “it was. Um, I guess organic courting really _is_ fun…”

“Told you,” Jin May said, beamimg. “Glad you think so too.”

Slingshot fidgeted for a second, and sensing there was more he wanted to say Jin May gave him a second to get his thoughts in order. Finally, he said, “Hey, so. This whole wedding thing, um… would you want to go with me?” Seeing her expression switch to curious surprise, he hastily amended, “I mean I know you’re already _going_, we’re both going, that why we’re— i-it’s another organic custom, isn’t it? You’re supposed to bring someone to these things? Like a friend or a—” she got the distinct impression that if he’d had blood, he would’ve been blushing— “or a ‘date’?”

Well how could she say no to _that?_

“I’d love to, Slingshot.”

Everything about him immediately lit up, and was then curbed just as quickly. “Alright. Cool. Pick you up here before we head over?”

“Sounds great. See you then!”

She gave one last little wave, and then turned to head into the hotel as Slingshot nodded and rose into the air.

(She chanced a small glance over her shoulder. She had just enough time to see him give a tiny fist pump and a small dance where he bobbed momentarily in the air before shooting off through the sky.)

Jin May walked back to her hotel room. The lobby was empty save for the attendant at the counter. There were a few people in the lounge she passed, but for the most part things had gone quiet.

She locked her door behind her when she got to her room, kicking off her heels and sitting on the end of her bed. The view outside her window was prettier at night, even if it was still just of the road below and neighboring offices and shops. The lights from passing cars and streetlamps reflected pleasingly off the glass of the surrounding buildings’ windows.

The date had been… _wonderful_. _Magical_, even.

Her shoulders slowly started to shake. Her eyes stung, tears came, and then wouldn’t stop coming. She pressed her hands to her mouth, feeling stupidly that if someone heard her it would count more, despite being alone in her room.

The date had been _wonderful…_

…so why was it she could still only think of Chiro?

* * *

Almost fifteen years prior, a skeleton had leaned over the exposed panels of a robot’s head, working. It was an interesting find, particularly considering it had been randomly floating around deep space. All its functions were still in prime working condition, and it had enough weapons built into it to fend off an army.

And it looked like a young girl. A plan had begun forming the moment he first looked at it.

He had to let it power on to get at the brain panels. At least if he didn’t want to damage anything, he did. He found its AI suitably high for his needs; upon reactivation it had immediately been alarmed by him and even demonstrated fear. He’d restrained it beforehand, so its struggling didn’t amount to much. Eventually it went quiet, though that probably had more to do with him deactivating its vocalizer than it did with it calming down. Its wide eyes still flickered from him, side to side, and back like a terrified human’s would have as he worked. If it weren’t for its head being wide open to reveal the robotics within, it would’ve been indistinguishable from an actual organic lifeform.

Absolutely perfect.

He was fairly certain its appearance would be enough to draw the boy’s attention, and with the right tweaking to its personality he’d be able to ensure that it _kept_ it. But its AI was proving to be both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it meant it would be able to adjust to situations like a real human would, making the act believable. A curse because it meant it could _think_. Even if the boy decided he was interested in it, all would be for naught if _it_ decided it wasn’t interested in _him._

Well. He could fix that. A bit of backdoor programming and the boy would be _all _it was interested in. And once he was through cleansing its memory, it would never know things had ever been any different.

Problem solved.


End file.
